You've Got Your Demons (And They All Look Like Me)
by strikingsparks
Summary: Gwen grieves for her dad and finds out why she hasn't heard from her spider-suit clad boyfriend. Title comes from a Taylor Swift song.


When Peter doesn't come to her father's funeral, Gwen locks herself in her room and stares out the window, the rain matching the way she feels in such a cliché way that it only makes her angry; she throws a pillow at the glass and wails, tired of waiting for her red and blue clad moron to appear outside.

She spends a few days at home like this, missing class because her mother lets her and because she's not ready to be in a place where people expect her time and dedication, as if she can just simply snap out of her grief. A whole week goes by before her mother finally suggests at dinner one night, quietly and carefully, that maybe she should think about returning to her classes. Gwen nods along and says there's something she has to do first.

* * *

It doesn't take her long to get to Peter's home, but she finds plenty of time to be nervous on the short metro ride, tapping her fingers against the top of her umbrella and wincing at each jolt or bump. Finally, she finds herself in front of a door marked with the number 36, impatiently waiting for someone to answer.

She doesn't really expect the conversation with Peter that follows.

Gwen knows that he's never been particularly skilled at talking to her, but his lack of response to almost everything she says just feels like he's ignoring her, treating her like a pest that he wants gone. She wants to punch him, set his Spidey sense off, do anything that will make him at least react to the fact that she's here, in front of him and hurting.

"I can't see you anymore. I can't," he says, and Gwen suddenly wishes she hadn't come, that there had been no reaction from him, because this hurts so much more than she expected. She wants to ask why, demand an explanation, but instead she just turns to leave before she winds up crying on his doorstep because she's tired of begging for his attention.

She can practically hear her dad's voice as she walks away, some warning he probably told her a million times about how some boys are just trouble.

That's when she knows, when she recognizes exactly what must have happened. If her father saw Peter unmasked, just as he was dying…

She turns back to look at him, and she can see it on his face, in the way he avoids her eyes and looks like he's ready to cry himself.

"He made you promise, didn't he? To stay away from me, to keep me safe." She says it like she's asking a question, but she knows the answer, even when Peter doesn't respond. Gwen can hardly bring herself to believe that this is the one thing her father and the vigilante could agree on together.

She walks the whole way home, despite the rain and cold wind, because she doesn't want to cry on the public subway.

* * *

Gwen walks back into Midtown Science High the following Monday, inhaling the stale smell of textbooks and old cafeteria food. She almost feels comforted because, here at least, nothing has changed, but then she sees Peter at his locker and considers taking some other route to her English class, just so she can avoid walking by him. She digs through piles of paper for her books and watches quietly as Flash saunters by, his Spiderman shirt proudly on display. Gwen wonders what, exactly, the basketball star would think of his newest hero if he realized that he was currently at his locker, chuckling at his fashion choices.

But she's almost late for class, so Gwen simply finds the notebook she needs and walks past Peter, not even glancing in his direction because she knows that he's not going to speak to her anyways.

* * *

He comes into English class late, during the middle of the teacher's lecture, the content of which she doesn't even comprehend because she's too busy trying to make sure that she doesn't look at him, wondering whether he's just been standing in the hall or if he's been out shooting webs already. _It doesn't matter why he's late_, she reminds herself. _It can't matter to you anymore_.

Peter mumbles some sort of apology for his tardiness, and Gwen stiffens at the sound of his voice, coming from just behind her.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Mr. Parker," Ms. Ritter says, chastising him for what Gwen knows will likely be many more late arrivals.

She tries to return her attention back to the lecture, her concentration on plot or whatever the subject is she's supposed to be learning about today. Just as Ms. Ritter begins to speak again, she hears another voice whispering behind her.

"But those are the best kind."

Gwen tries to remind herself that the comment could be for anyone and about anything, but that doesn't explain the smile she feels twitching in the corners of her lips.

* * *

Later that night, after the streetlights have come on, she hears a thump on her bedroom window, and a voice, muffled by the thick glass, asks whether it's too late for dinner.

She doesn't hesitate to let her red and blue clad moron in.


End file.
